More than Listening: ‘Reading Music’ from Dieter Schnebel’s MO-NO, Musik zum Lesen

Seoul National University

Master Course
Yeasul Shin

1. Introduction

2. Score as Instruction or Musical Work as Expression

3. Collage of Musical Memories

4. Time and Experience

5. Medium and Contents

1. Introduction

John Cage’s 4′33″, Earle Brown’s December 1952, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Es—at times telling us to be
silent, that it is good enough merely to look, only to wait without doing anything, these works do not demand
musicking. In addition, Gerhard Rühm’s Visuelle Musik (1987), Josef Anton Riedl’s Optische Lautgedichte
(1960), and Dieter Schnebel’s MO-NO: Musik zum Lesen(1969) present “looking” and “reading” as methods of
appreciation.

These works present music through “reading” or “looking.” Several questions ensue. Reading and looking
are not activities accompanied by sounds. If so, then is music without sounds music, too? Can music be
appreciated by reading? If so, then how do we experience this? Can the concept of music indeed be separated
from sounds? In addition, “reading,” an act slightly more active than “looking,” seems to presuppose the
existence of contents to be read. In MO-NO, what is Schnebel telling us to read? Can we embrace this as music?

Included in Schnebel’s silent music series “Räume” (Space), MO-NO is introduced in book of Musik-
Konzepte 16: Dieter Schnebel as the book version of KI-NO, a work that belongs to the same series. “KI-NO is a
predominantly visual music ... Since this no-play intends a music that arises in the mind of the listener, is
interpreted by himself.”1 And MO-NO is “Book version of KI-NO, not in the form of a score that could comply
with one performance that is binding for more than one listener. It rather can be compared to an instrument

1
‘ki-no ist eine überwiegend optische Musik ... Denn dieses No-spiel intendiert eine Musik, die sich im Kopf des Hörers
einstellt, von ihm selbst interpretiert wird.’ – Dieter Schnebel/Hans Rudolf Zeller, “Werkverzeichnis,” Musik-Konzepte 16
Dieter Schnebel, edition text+kritik, 1980, 126.
which enables each individual reader to play both prescribed 'chords' and those freely invented by himself. …
Well the book MO-NO is aesthetically determined object, but this in the interest of an interpretation of the music
of your life that otherwise accompanies the heard music as an unheard music.”2

Composed of a total of 213 pages, MO-NO consists of diverse elements. The text, written in English and
German, amounts to 97 pages; staff notation amounts to four pages; what seems to be graphic notation amounts
to 71 pages; photographs and pictures amount to four pages; and pages in which all of these are intermixed
amount to 37. Depicted on staff and graphic notation pages are musical notes, musical symbols, and clefs, and
text pages include contents related to music and sounds including descriptions of sounds such as ganz ruhig and
of Christian G. Wolff playing the piano.

Figure 1 score page

Figure 2 text page

2
‘Buchfassung von ki-no, jedoch nicht in Form einer Partitur, der eine für mehrere Hörer verbindliche Aufführung
entspechen könnte. Eher einem Instrument vergleichbar, auf dem jeder einzelne Leser für sich sowohl vorgezeichnete
'Akkorde' als auch frei von ihm erfundene spielen kann. … Wohl ist das Buch Mo-NO ästhetisch determinietes Objekt, dies
aber im Interesse einer Interpretation der Musik Ihres Lebens, die sonst die gehörte ungehört begleitet.’ – Dieter
Schnebel/Hans Rudolf Zeller, “Werkverzeichnis,” Musik-Konzepte 16 Dieter Schnebel, edition text+kritik, 1980, 127.
 Figure 3 painting page

Figure 4 graphic notation page

Figure 5 mixed contents page

 2. Score as Instruction or Musical Work as Expression

According to Schnebel and Zeller’s interpretation, MO-NO can be seen as a musical score—that is, just as
we “read” musical scores. The presentation of various visual materials claiming that MO-NO is related to music
or is music is most similar to the function of musical scores. In Grove Dictionary, the noun ‘score’ means: (a) a
form of manuscript or printed music in which the staves, linked by bar-lines, are written above one another, in
order to represent the musical coordination visually; (b) a page, volume, fascicle or other artefact containing a
complete copy of a musical work; and (c) by extension, a piece of music customarily written ‘in score’, i.e. in
the form of a score as defined under (a) above.3

Just as it is impossible to define music absolutely, a musical score cannot be summarized into one
sentence. What is possible, then, will be classification, not definition. Helga de la Motte-Haber separates
musical notation into four elements:

Analytical Visual

Symbolic Contemplative

Musical letters Musical pictures

Elaborate notational form/ Graphic notation/

Record of resulting sounds Musical graphics
Figure 6 classification of score by Helga de la Motte-Haber4

What is interesting here are graphic notation and musical graphics. Did Haber see musical graphics also as
musical scores? What is the difference between musical graphics and graphic notation? Though seemingly
similar, they ultimately designate disparate objects. In the end, graphic notation designates musical scores and
musical graphics designates “music.” Nevertheless, when one encounters a visual object, there would not in fact
exist a clear boundary with which to distinguish these two. However, unlike graphic notation, musical graphics
can simultaneously seem like musical scores, which are instructions for musical action, and be perceived as
graphically expressed music.

If MO-NO is a musical score, it will be a musical instruction; and if MO-NO is musical graphics, it will be
a musical “expression.” In consideration of Dieter Schnebel and Hans Rudolf Zeller’s interpretation, it can at
once be read as a musical instruction and seen as a musical expression. However, when the meaning of the title
is taken into consideration, the work seems to be closer to an expression than to an instruction. Both reading and
the word “mono” seem to recount the fragmentary process through which a work approaches the appreciator.
The boundary between instruction and expression, and musical graphics—these are the first characteristics of
MO-NO.

3
Grove Music Online(Oxford Music Online) “Score,” accessed 2014/10/06 23:34.
4
 3. Collage of Musical Memories

Even though MO-NO is distant from “music” in the conventional sense, we perceive it as a musical score
or as related to music. This is because its creator was a composer, its title includes the word “music,” and it
includes music-related symbols and contents that we have learned earlier. Consequently, the precondition
necessary for discussing whether or not this work is music is an understanding of the cultural characteristics of
Western art music to a certain degree.

Under such a presupposition, we come to perceive the contents of MO-NO as related to music from the
unconscious stage. In addition, this is a phenomenon triggered by memory. When we see musical notes, we
unconsciously come to know that they are symbols related to music based on prolonged experience. In addition,
because the contents revealed by MO-NO are mostly visual symbols related to music, we see and perceive them
as related to music based on previous experience and memory.

However, there also are pages without actual musical symbols. If one page is seen as O1, we will
simultaneously recollect many memories in relation to it instead of a single one. If O1 holds symbols related to
music, we will recollect things related to music. However, if O2 does not related to music, can we say that this
page is completely unrelated to music? We surely cannot. In the process of appreciating a work, we do not see
individual pages as separate. In other words, individual pages constitute an entire work.

At the beginning of MO-NO is the musical score for a work by Franz Schubert. Seeing it, we recall the
latter composer and his piano piece. In other words, we are recollecting our memories. Then appear the words
“very quietly” (ganz ruhig). We in turn recall memories and experiences related to them. This is followed by our
experience of those individual pages. Memories of experiencing countless pages, in the end, are tied together
into experiencing the single object called MO-NO.

When we perceive that the contents on most of the pages are related to music, it becomes self-evident that
even though MO-NO cannot create actual music, it recalls our respective musical memories corresponding to the
musical symbols presented by each of the pages. In addition, being left with an impression at each page and
recollecting related memories not only recall past memories but also create new memories in which past
memories and each of the pages meet and combine. Through this, there is ample room for interpretation that the
memory of appreciating the entire work called MO-NO will be left as a musical experience.

4. Time and Experience

The fact that these pages can be tied together into one, as the single work MO-NO, is affected by the
medium of the book. Stories, books, and music can be appreciated only with the intervention of time.

However, the most important problem is sounds. Can music without sounds be music? There are
contemporary composers who have noted the temporality of music. Most well-known as “music without sounds,”
Cage’s 4′33″ demands one not to take musical action but reveals the temporality of music by positioning its
work concept within the time span of 4 minutes and 33 seconds. In addition, Arvo Pärt’s Tabula Rasa likewise
places time without sounds, or empty time, within the work, thus stressing both the production of sounds and
time of silence. These two works are characterized by the fact that they are not filled with musical sounds during
the time in which they are performed. Even when it is not filled with musical sounds, musical time flows. This
is clear from the case of the general pause (GP), which has been used effectively in orchestration though it is a
slightly minor example. During one, there clearly is no sound. Nevertheless, is it not a part of music? What is
important is the “continuity” of musical time.
 Let us imagine that we are reading a novel. Holding the book with both hands and turning each page, we
picture the story in our minds. Supposing that we have read the work from beginning to end, what was the
element needed to read this book? It is continuous time. We do not conceptualize a single book, a single musical
work as fragmentary pages or phrases but perceive it as a whole. Let us also imagine a scene where we are
reading Schnebel’s work. When we open the book, the first page shows the title, publication year, and publisher
of the work, followed by a page that only bears MO-NO. In addition, written on the next page are the words für
Hörer (“for the listener”), followed by a page with the musical score of Schubert’s work on it. For those who are
skilled at reading staff notation, inner hearing, where one imagines the sounds by looking only at musical scores,
will be possible. In other words, just as the definition of this work as “music” to be read prompts us to think in
terms of the keyword “music” when appreciating the book, the placement of the musical score of Schubert’s
piece, which is music without a doubt, at the beginning of the volume starts music in the reader’s mind.

If this work differs visually from music, it is that we can freely adjust the time taken for its appreciation.
Regardless of whether or not subsequent pages are directly related to music, insofar as it has already begun as
related to music, the work is not completely separate from music even if it grows distant from the latter. Those
who are familiar with staff notation will be able to picture concrete sound images in their minds immediately
and to hear the music at the same time. Likewise, those who are unfamiliar will not lose the thread of music
even if they are somewhat removed from concrete sounds. In other words, by defining the work as music, a
musical experience is created.

Consequently, the situation that emerges in MO-NO is the manifestation in music of musical contents,
which are temporal contents, through diverse visual media—though they are not sounds—like the manifestation
in literature of stories, which are temporal contents, as writings, as books, which are visual media, through the
mechanism of “reading.” However, it is not possible to define something as music simply based on the existence
of “continuous time” alone, just as not all temporal arts can be music. I have thus far discussed the boundary
between music and musical scores brought about by the visual media of musical scores and time, which is the
basis of music. Now, I will delve into the kernel surrounded by this skin called a book—in other words, which
contents of this book is “musical” or “music.”

5. Medium and Contents

Can music be separated into the medium and the contents? If it is to be separated, the medium would be
sounds. If so, then what indeed are the contents that are left after the sounds of countless musical works existing
in the world have been eliminated? First, let us suppose that there are the contents of an immaterial and abstract
art. It will be possible to express those contents through diverse media. If such contents select the medium of
sounds and are expressed as music, then they will clearly differ from those that select the medium of the canvas
and are expressed as painting. When music is selected as the form of expression, there will be certain
characteristics of music that have served as the reason for the decision, and such a selection will exhibit the
same pattern for other media as well.

If so, then what is common to the contents of MO-NO and how can they be tied together into a single
work? Existing within the medium of a book as its contents, those pages are divided once again into media and
contents. Though there seems to be a mixture of very disparate media including staff notation, graphic notation,
photography, painting, and text, which are the components of MO-NO (such as written descriptions of musical
performances), they are commonly tied by the element of vision. If so, then what meaning does the combination
of these various media hold in Schnebel’s work? Because they are presented through disparate media per page,
the contents interfere with customary appreciation. Though the degree of understanding of each page will differ
according to individuals’ consciousness and experience with music, most appreciators will read the variety of
media that constitute the pages of MO-NO in their respective ways, just as they read writings, listen to music,
and look at paintings.
 When we feel that a medium is transparent, we come to forget the existence of that medium itself and to
focus on the contents. On the contrary, when diverse media are used irregularly, they ultimately interfere with
our perception of the contents to be appreciated. Because there is no shared medium, we may unconsciously
endeavor to find a commonality in the contents, in which case we may take down the medium and focus more
on the contents. In other words, seeing an unexpected photograph, we ask, “For what reason indeed? What is
this saying?” May this perhaps not be one device leading to the essence of this work?

Thus seemingly non-musical, the contents of MO-NO seem actually to draw us closer to the question of
“What is music?” instead. It is difficult to present an absolute answer to the question of what music is. We say
that it is “musical” when something outside music, rather than music itself, is music-like. If, instead of
answering the question of what music is through music, we examine what outside music we call musical or the
nature of what is music-like, or of music, may we perhaps not get even closer to answering the question?
Perhaps the diverse media and contents of MO-NO may be an assembly of such “musical” contents? Of course,
when viewed with preexisting musical concepts as the standard, this work, which does not presuppose
performance, clearly cannot be defined as music. Nevertheless, there is ample room for interpretation.
 Reference

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Translated by

Derrida, Jacques. De la Grammatologie. Les Éditions de Minuit, 1967.

Translated by

Dieter Schnebel/Hans Rudolf Zeller, “Werkverzeichnis,” Musik-Konzepte 16 Dieter Schnebel, edition

text+kritik, 1980

Ellingson, Ter. “Notation.” in Ethnomusicology, An Introduction, Edited by Helen Myers.

New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 1992.
Translated by

Griffiths, Paul. Modern Music: A Concise History from Debussy to Boulez. Thames and Hudson, 1978.
Translated by

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Critical Edition, Gingko Press, 2003.
Translated by

Schnebel, Dieter/Zeller, Hans Rudolf, “Werkverzeichnis,” Musik-Konzepte 16 Dieter Schnebel, edition

text+kritik, 1980

Small, Christopher. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Wesleyan University Press, 1998.
Translated by

Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online) “Score,” accessed 2014/10/06 23:34.
www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/